Youth breaches Chennai airport security

DC CORRESPONDENT

Published Jan 7, 2015, 11:55 am IST

Updated Jan 10, 2016, 8:38 am IST

This is the first incident of a security breach this year

Chennai: In a major security breach at the Chennai airport, which is guarded by CISF’s five-tier security, a youth managed to scale a gate and got close to an aircraft early on Tuesday morning. The youth confessed later that he did so to try his luck to travel on a flight without a ticket as in trains. CISF personnel noticed him roaming around as a flight landed from Dubai at around 3.30 am.

The intruder was immediately picked up and identified as Mohamed Malik, 28, a native of Sivaganga who is residing in Kodungaiyur in the city. Malik is the patient of a psychiatrist. The security personnel found a prescription on him disclosing he is a psychiatric patient. He was supposed to meet his doctor on Tuesday, but had left his house on Monday evening.When questioned, Mohamed Malik reportedly told officials that he wanted to go to Dubai without a ticket. When security officials sensed that he was not mentally sound, they sent him to a hospital.

Video clippings revealed the man scaling gate No. 9 of the airport. Security at the airport had been heightened since Sunday on receipt of a hijack threat when an aged woman from Delhi made a hoax call to CISF control room saying an explosion would take place in Chennai and Hyderabad airports, beside warning of the hijacking of Air India flights.

In the wake of the hijack alert, the CISF had added two more security checks at different points to regular three levels of checking.Meanwhile, a CISF official, in charge of security, denied any incident of an intruder getting inside the aircraft parking bay area had taken place.“There has been no instance of trespassing. We detained a man loitering outside the terminals late last night and handed him over to the police,” a senior official said when this newspaper contacted CISF.